Chairs



Dec. 23, 1969 H. KRAMER CHAIRS Filed July 5, 1968 INVENTOR United States Patent 3,485,528 CHAIRS Hyman Kramer, 2764 E. 16th St., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11235 Filed July 5, 1968, Ser. No. 742,836

Int. Cl. A47c 4/28 US. Cl. 297-45 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A folding arm chair of the type known as directors or captains chair is characterized by side frames for supporting the seat and back-rest panels which are made wholly or in part from plastic by injection molding same. A major part of each said frame is a unitary side rail structure which comprises a seat side rail, an arm-rest side rail and hinge means connecting said rails, all integral and made of plastic.

This invention relates to improvements in chairs and more particularly in folding arm chairs of the type variously known as directors chairs and captains chairs.

Heretofore, the seat and back-rest frames of folding arm chairs have been fashioned from individual wood or extruded metal parts which are usually machine-shaped and/or cut to proper size and thereupon hand-assembled one within the other as required to build up said frames. Obviously, the manifold machine and manual assembling operations necessary to the production of said frames adds substantially to the overall manufacturing costs thereof and hence to the price which purchasers must pay for same.

Stated broadly, an object of the invention is the provision of a method of producing the seat and back frames, and/or sub-assemblies of plural individual parts making up the same, of folding arm chairs of the type known as directors or captains chairs, which greatly simplifies and speeds up the manufacture thereof and thereby substantially reduces the cost thereof.

Another major object of the invention is the provision of chairs of the stated nature which are characterize by side frames of novel and sturdy yet inexpensive construction.

A more particular object of the invention is the provision of an improved seat and arm-rest side rail subassembly for folding arm chairs, wherein the seat and arm-rest side rails proper, together with the hinge means connecting same as is conventional, are of unitary, integral construction and capable of being fabricated to subassembly form at a fraction of the cost of comparable seat and arm-rest side rail and connecting hinge subassemblies fabricated of wood and/or metal parts.

Another object of the invention is the provision of a folding arm chair characterized by unitary backand armrest supporting frame sub-assemblies capable of being readily assembled as such with the side rail structure as usually employed in such chair construction.

Yet another object of the invention is the provision of a folding arm chair wherein the entire side frames which support both the back-rest panel and the seat panel are of unitary integral construction throughout.

The above and other objects and features of advantage of a folding arm chair incorporating side frames constructed according to the present invention will be apparent from a consideration of the following detailed description thereof, taken with the accompanying illustrative drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a typical folding arm chair incorporating the improved frame construction according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view illustrative of one (the righthand) side frame of the chair illustrated in FIG. 1, according to one form of side frame construction of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a vertical section taken through the side frame shown in FIG. 1 on a vertical plane passing through the arm-rest post thereof;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view illustrating a unitary side rail sub-assembly for folding arm chairs such as are shown in FIG. 1 which sub-assembly may be constructed as such or as a component part of an entire unitary side frame such as is shown in FIG. 2; and

FIG. 5yis a perspective view which illustrates a further feature of the invention, namely, that the back-rest post, the arm rest and the arm-rest post components of the entire side frame as shown in FIG. 2 may be manufacturedas a unitary sub-assembly unit.

Referring to the drawings in detail, FIG. 1 illustrates a folding arm chair of the type for which the invention is particularly suited. Such a chair generally comprises a conventional folding-leg structure made up of front and rear pairs of folding legs 10 and 12 pivotally interconnected by pivots 14 and which are maintained in the set-up or in use position by jointed cross braces 16; a pair of side frames F F of identical although right and lefthand construction adapted to be supported from said leg structure; and a flexible-material seat panel SP and a back-rest panel BP of generally similar material which extend between and are supported by said side frames in the manner illustrated in FIG. 1.

According to the form of the present invention shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the side frames F and F are each of unitary construction throughout, being made of plastic and molded to side-frame shape preferably by injecting molding same complete in a one-shot operation. More particularly, each so fashioned side frame comprises a plastic seat side rail 20, a plastic arm-rest side rail 22, a plastic web h interconnecting said side rails and serving as a hinge enabling the arm-rest side rail 22 to swing between set-up and collapsed positions with respect to the seat side rail 20, and integral with said arm-rest rail 22 a plastic back-rest post 24 and a plastic arm-rest post 26, together with a plastic arm rest 28 extending between said posts.

FIGS. 2 and 3 further illustrate the preferred manner of connecting the seat panel SP, which as is conventional may be made of canvas or from plastic sheet or plastic woven material, to each of the seat rails. Such a connection employs an anchor rod or bar designated 30- which is threaded into an end loop 32 formed at each end of the seat panel, said bar and loop seating in a longitudinal, part-cylindrical groove 36 (FIG. 2) provided in each seat rail and which is formed with a narrow-width access slot 36a through which the panel passes. Such an arrangement provides secure anchorage for the ends of the seat panel, which is of course supplemented by the clamping action which the side rail 22 exercises on the panel end portion when in the set-up condition of the chair it is brought against the upper surface of the seat rail 20 through which said access slot 36w opens.

It is contemplated that the groove 36 and its access slot 36a will be provided in the seat rail 20 during the course of injection molding the unitary side frame assembly. Alternatively, should it be found more feasible, the groove and its access slot may be machined in the side rail 20 following fabrication thereof together with the other frame parts.

Unitary side frames for folding arm chairs such as are shown in FIG. 2 are preferably fashioned from a high impact plastic, with the result that the frames cast therefrom are durable and have long life. The use of such a plastic also insures that the plastic hinge (or plural hinges) h will provide all of the necessary hinging action between the rails 20 and 22 for the life of the frame and/or chairs made therefrom. Incidentally, while FIG. 2 shows the plastic hinge h as extending the full length of the rails 20, 22 which are connected thereby, the one long hinge shown may instead be broken down into a plurality of shorter-length hinges or hinge sections without departing from the scope of the invention, all as shown in FIG. 4.

It will be appreciated from the foregoing that folding arm chairs according to the invention incorporating the unitary side frames of the nature of that shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 may be manufactured at a fraction of the cost of folding arm chairs employing side frames made of individual seat rails, arm-rest rails, back panel posts, arm-rest posts and arm rests produced in separate operations, in that it substantially eliminates the cost of fashioning said parts individually and thereupon assembling same into a frame construction. Such follows from the fact that since a folding arm-chair side frame according to the invention may be fashioned in a relatively oneshot injection-molding operation from a plastic material to unitary form, it eliminates the necessity for the expensive hand chucking, turning, drilling and/or grooving operations previously required in the formation of tenon joints between the back-panel and arm-rest posts and the arm-rest back rail, for example. Furthermore, by providing a side rail structure employing a hinge made of the same plastic as that forming the seat and arm-rest side rails proper, the necessity of providing separate metal hinges and of drilling the rails for the screws conventionally employed to secure such hinges is completely eliminated.

FIGS. 4 and 5 illustrate that various alternate methods of fabricating the side frames for folding arm-chairs are possible according to the invention. More particularly, FIG. 4 illustrates that instead of forming each of the side frames complete and in unitary form, each side frame may be fashioned from two separate all-plastic sub-assemblies, one comprising the seat side rail 20, the arm-rest side rail 22', the sectional connecting hinge h", and the other comprising the back-rest post 24, the armrest post 26' and the arm rest 28'. Alternatively, the first enumerated sub-assembly only may be fashioned from plastic, whereas the sub-assembly comprising said parts 24', 26 and 28' may be fashioned from wood or aluminum.

Yet another variation in folding arm-chair frame construction according to the invention is possible, namely, that of providing an all-plastic side frame sub-assembly comprising said back-rest post 24', arm rail post 26' and arm rest 28', and integral therewith the arm-rest side rail 22 shown in broken lines (FIG. 5) to be separate from the seat side rail 20. Such a sub-assembly may be used with a wooden or metal seat side-rail corresponding to those designated 20 or 20, to which it will be hinged for bodily swinging movement with respect thereto.

Without further analysis, it will be appreciated that the present invention is based on the novel concept of fashioning complete or in sub-assembly form the side frames of folding arm chairs from a suitable plastic material by a simple injection molding procedure, thus to greatly simplify and speed up the production of such chairs as compared to the production of folding arm chairs by the conventional procedures. Further, by substantially reducing labor and material costs, folding arm chairs according to the invention are brought within the reach of the purchaser who prior to the present invention had to pay premium prices for folding arm chairs of the directors and/ or captains type, because of the expensive machining and assembling operations required in their manufacture.

As many changes could be made in carrying out the above constructions without departing from the scope of the invention, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.

I claim:

1. A folding arm chair including normally spacedapart and upright side frames providing support for flexible seat and back-rest panels, said side frames each comprising: seat and arm-rest side rails, of which said seat side rail incorporates means independent of said arm-rest side rail for securing an end of a seat panel thereto; hinge means hingedly connecting said arm-rest side rail to said seat side rail; a back-rest panel attaching post and an arm-rest supporting post fixedly secuied to said armrest side rail; and an arm rest affixed to and extending between said posts; at least said side rails and the hinge means connecting same being of one-piece molded plastic construction and said hinge means being sufficiently flexible as to permit said arm-rest side rail to swing between its normal or chair set-up position in which it overlies said seat side rail and its chair-folded position in Which it extends along the relatively outer side of said seat side rail.

2. A folding arm chair according to claim 1, wherein said backand arm-rest posts and said arm rest are also of molded plastic construction and are of One piece with said seat and arm-rest side rails and the hinge means connecting same.

3. A side rail sub-assembly for folding arm chairs comprising a seat-panel supporting side rail, an arm-rest supporting side rail adapted normally to overlie and to be supported on said seat side-rail; said seat side rail incorporating means independent of said arm-rest side rail for securing an end of a seat panel thereto; and hinge means interconnecting said side rails and being of the same material as that of said side rails yet sufficiently flexible as to permit said arm-rest side rail to swing between its said normally supported position and a chairfolded position in which it is disposed sidewardly-outwardly of said seat side rail.

4. A sub-assembly according to claim 3, wherein said seat side rail, said arm-rest side rail and said hinge means are of one-piece molded-plastic c nstruction.

5. The method of manufacturing folding arm chairs of the type wherein seatand back-rest panels of flexible material extend between and are supported by normally upright side frames, each comprising a seat side rail, an arm-rest side rail, hinge means connecting said rails, back-rest and arm-rest posts afiixed to said arm-rest side rail, and an arm rest extending between and affixed to said posts, said method including the step of: forming at least both said side rails and connecting hinge means of each said side frame as a sub-assembly unit by injection-molding same from a suitable plastic material.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS D. 180,974 9/ 1957 Umanotf 297-45 XR 2,582,864 1/1952 Gittings et al. --395 XR 2,914,111 11/ 1959 Mize 29745 3,142,550 7/1964 Kuchne 160-391 XR 3,266,711 8/1966 Song 24-243.11XR

DONALD A. GRIFFIN, Primary Examiner 

